Dear visitors, the Dari/Farsi alphabet Flash educational movie is finaly finished. I have tried my best to keep the size of the movie low. The current file size (mostly sounds for the letters) is 467KB about 45 seconds for Dial up connection to load the file. At meantime please read the notes below while the file is loading. Thanks, Last Updated :29 September 2004

The words for easy pronunciation, used in English, might be confusing for those living in different parts of the world, whom are not familiar with the phonemes used here.
I will go through a brief explanation of some English letters used with conjunction of making one sound in Dari Alphabet(letter).

" aa " two A's used for Dari letter equivalent to that of making the sound e.g. in the word "aab" آب (water), or "aasmaan" آسمان (sky). and the sound as the "a" in the English word "Talk" or the “a” in the German word "Sagen".

ee” two E's used for Dari letter equivalent to that of making the sound e.g. in the word “zameen” زمین (earth), and the sound as in the English “ee” in the word “Keen” and “ea” in the word “Beat” or “ie” in the German word “Sie” and “ih” in the German word “Ihnen”.

Though it is difficult to get the exact pronunciation (vowel) into english letters, as the sounds are either slightly different or few to choose from. E.g. in the Dari word استاد “ostaad” or “ustaad” (teacher), the first Dari letter “Alef” in this case is not “a” or “ao”.

I tried my best to get as close as i could, selecting equivalent phonemes to that of original Dari/Farsi.
Vowels in Dari/Farsi may be classified as either rounded or un-rounded, as either lax or tense, and as either long or short.

We have 6 phonemes in Dari/Farsi. 3 short ones and 3 long ones.
Short ones are: /a/, /ae/ and /o/
Long ones are: /aa/, /i/ or /ee/ and /u/ or /oo/
And the rest consonant/silent.
For example: The word در “dar” (daal + ray) have a consonant + short vowel + consonant.

Reading Dari/Farsi is some times as tricky as English is, e.g. reading a word of the same letters.
The word in Dari with “meem”, “laam” and “kaaf” ملک (MLK) can be read in three different ways, with each given a different meaning ( M[a]l[e]k ) , ( M[o]lk ) and ( M[a]l[a]k ).


( M[a]l[e]k ) consonant + short vowel + consonant + short vowel + consonant
( M[o]lk ) consonant + short vowel + consonant + consonant
( M[a]l[a]k ) consonant + short vowel + consonant + short vowel + consonant

Unlike Arabic, Dari/Farsi is not written with the vowel-sign, therefore it makes it more difficult for beginners to read the word correctly. In the above mentioned word, the short vowels are not written, but is part of the letter before it as the phoneme.

Dari/Farsi Alphabet have four shapes/forms:
1- Singular/single or written by it self as a letter (separately)
2- Written partially at the beginning
3- Written partially at the middle
4- Written singular at the end of a word

Six letters of Dari/Farsi Alphabet can only be written as singular/single or written by it self as a letter (separately) and/or written as singular at the end of a word. And they are:
“daal” (د) “zaal” (ذ) “ray” (ر) “zay” (ز) “ zhay” (ژ) and “wow” (و) .

Any of the phonemes, three long ones and three short ones applies to each of Dari/Farsi alphabet letters.
Example: a , ae , o and ba , bae , bo and ta , te , to etc. etc. etc.

Here are some of the letters used, which you can familiarise yourself with:

/a/ is equivalent to the vowel in the word cat.
/aa/ is equivalent to the vowel in the word talk.
/ae/ is equivalent to the vowel in the word ate.
/au/ is equivalent to the vowel in the word caught.
/ch/ is equivalent to the sound in the word child
/dh/ is equivalent to the sound in the word think
/e/ is equivalent to the vowel in the word bit.
/e/ is equivalent to the vowel in the word bed.
/ee/ is equivalent to the vowel in the word feel.
/gh/ is equivalent to the sound in the word Afghanistan or in German “reden”(gheden) in Dari the letter “ghain”. (note: writing the letter "Ghain" (غ) with the English letter "Q" is not only wrong but very much misleading) and also the other way around, writing the letter "Qaaf" (ق) with "gh" is not only wrong but misleading. For example: the word غریب "ghareeb" which means foreing or lonely if one writes this word with "q" as i have seen many do (qareeb). In this case "qareeb" (قریب) is totaly a different word meaning "near" and "relative" or "kindred". غریب should be writen "ghareeb" and قریب should be writen "qareeb" and the same goes with any other words containing the letter "ghain" or "qaaf" .
/kh/ is equivalent to the sound in the Dari word Khalid or the sound in the German word ”buch
/zh/ is equivalent to the sound in the English word beige or in Dari word “Zhaala” or the french ”garage” .

 

Top


Last Updated: 29 September 2004

© 2004 Dari Alphabet

1